Culcheth Chess Club Blog

In the Penultimate game before Christmas our A team faced St Helens. We had managed to take an early lead so far in the Division 1 league table, this has been quite surprising to me as we have been without a good handful of the key players from previous seasons.

Going into this fixture St Helens sat 2 points behind us, meaning that a drawn match would see us tied at the top.

The match began 15 minutes later then the usual start time, no complaints from us as this suited Ilya who as ever was racing to get to the game straight from work and therefore on this occasion did without his usual 10 minute starting deficit. Ilya was up against Barry Groves, to Ilya’s surprise Barry bashed out 1.g4?! which has a reputation of being the very worst opening move one can play! “The Grob” as it is known is not without some venom for the unwary opponent, however on this occasion Barry’s neglect of traditional opening principles was to cost him dear as Ilya went on to win quickly with a powerful kingside attack. 0-1

Ian Dutton on board 1 had been expecting to face Mark Ellis, Mark however had apparently been a late drop out so therefore Steve Potter was Ian’s opponent on board one. Steve played his usual Black set up with an early Bishop on the long diagonal whilst Ian took control of the central squares and had a pretty position.

From the above diagram, Black decided to embark on a plan to distract the White bishop from its defence of e4 with …,Na5? Followed by c4 and Nb3.

the pawn on b3 is now a goner

Generally a strong centre in chess beats play on the wing and this proved to be the case here as Ian sidestepped Black’s idea and went on to win the loose pawn on b3. Steve now a pawn down with the worse position played on but Ian converted comfortably 0-2

The final moments of Dutton V Potter

On board 2 Damian was facing Phoenix Lamb for the first time since last season when Phoenix won a tremendous calculative game. This time around Damian was more on his guard having underestimated his opponent last time. A more positional game ensued which probably suited Damian a bit more, finally after a fair bit of manoeuvring Black managed to gain a won pawn ending. 0-3

Phoenix resigned here as Black’s King is going to invade

This left Rob and Nick to finish the match with the result already decided.

Rob looked to be playing a terrific game but perhaps lacking a bit of confidence from some tough results lately he made a mistake which allowed his opponent to gain a perpetual check. 0.5-3.5

This left Nick to finish off against another St Helens youngster Jake Money. We were grateful to Nick for playing this fixture at the last moment as Marek was a late drop out. This game looked extremely close throughout and the players agreed a fair draw in a fairly level rook and pawn ending. 1-4

Apologies are in order to the followers of this blog for the lack of an update after recent matches. A combination of one contributor being overseas and another’s laptop being out of commission was the reason for no reports being published of late. Now that I have a working laptop again hopefully normal service will now be resumed!

When we left things the A team had just been held to a draw by Division 1 newcomers Skelmersdale…

The following Wednesday it was our B team’s turn to welcome Skelmersdale, this time the away team left with all the points. Despite a fine effort by Keith Maudsley who played an excellent game against Paul Massey’s Colle system. Keith has kindly annotated this one which can be enjoyed below:

Over the past half dozen or so years the key fixture in the WDCL calendar has been the clash between Culcheth A and Atherton. The sides met for the first time this season on 7th November.

A slightly nervy match ensued with both sides likely aware of the importance of the fixture. The top three boards each played out to a draw leaving boards 4 and 5 to decide the result. On this occasion Andy Coe and Ilya Dubov both played excellent games which gave us the match win. I did take a picture of both of their scoresheets with the intention to publish these games here. Sadly however I seem to have managed to delete this from my phone over the past few weeks! Ilya / Andy if you would still like these games to be published perhaps you can provide me with a copy of your scoresheets and I can later add these wins into an updated version of this blog post!

This takes us up to more recent times where on the 15th November we had two home fixtures Culcheth A V Northwich A in division 1, whilst at the same time welcoming WDCL newcomers Eccles for their first visit to our club in Culcheth C V Eccles in WDCL division 3.

Our A team established a quick decisive 3-0 lead from boards 3, 4 and 5 which earned us an early victory in this fixture. Northwich were missing a few players meaning some of their less experienced players had been thrown in lower down. The top two boards were hotly contested however. Ian Dutton played a fine game against the talented James Harrison, James was not to know that he had played into a position Ian was having for the third time in a month! This allowed Ian to emerge with a good opening and he went onto convert.

Damian’s game against Richard was a close affair where in the end Richard was to lose on time, in a complicated but not necessarily worse endgame.

Boards 1 & 2 from the Culcheth V Northwich fixture

On the same evening Eccles edged a close match against our C team 1.5-3.5. Phil Dawson has kindly provided his game which was our only win from this match.

Culcheth had three fixtures last week, testing our player and indeed equipment resources to the limit. Here is how it all went down.

On the 17th October Culcheth took a trip to new WDCL entrants Lymm for a division 3 fixture. Tough games were had with perhaps the highlight fixture being Jonathan Miller’s game below against our much missed former member Bryan Slater, who now plays for Lymm as its closer for him. Jonathan’s commentary on that game below. Notible mentions to Vince who achieved a fine draw against Lymm’s young star Jake Humphreys and Nick Burriss for a good win on board 1.

Just a day later Culcheth had a double header fixture, the A team were at home against last season’s division 2 winners Skelmersdale. Whilst the Richard Furness side also faced Northwich at the same time and date.

This stretched our resources to the extent that two of the old analog clocks had to be dusted down and brought out for use!

The A team were missing a few players meaning that Damian had a decision to make as to whom to bring in on board 5. Should he go for the experienced Nick Burriss? Or a rising star in James Short?

In the end the decision to give Nick the nod seemed to pay off as both Nick and Andy Coe won their games quickly giving us a 2-0 lead. Nick’s game can be played through below.

Damian seemed to have built up an advantage however Gareth Ellis is a tough nut to crack and Gareth managed to hold on for the draw in a position where both players were unable to avoid a perpetual check to their kings.

Paul Stanley from Skelmersdale played a fine game on board 1 against Ian Dutton, the game went deep into a time scramble where both players had rook and 1 pawn left. Paul’s pawn crucially proved further advanced which allowed him to get the win 2.5-1.5

Finally Ilya’s game looked to be headed for a draw but for a most unfortunate bishop blunder likely brought about by the late hour, this mistake prematurely ended the game and resulted in a tied match 2.5-2.5 well done to Skelmersdale!

Finally at the top end of the room the Richard Furness side took on a rather strong looking Northwich side.

James made a better job then Damian did as Black recently against Adrian Breakspeares Colle system, the result was a draw on top board which was an excellent result by James against a strong player.

Dan was outgraded by over 300 points against former League president Richard Betts, he put up a good fight however but Richard emerged triumphant on board 2.

Phil Dawson has been playing excellent chess lately however on this occasion he was to lose against newcomer Liam Whittaker.

Then finally Daniel Anstess in just his second game for us managed an excellent draw on bottom board.